with a concealed-carry permit to carry a gun: in your purse, in your car or on your person.
Over 40 states have these laws. I am from Massachusetts. We have more restrictions – what is known as a ‘may issue’ rather than ‘shall issue’ law. If the mayor likes you, or the police chief likes you, he may give you a permit. In 40 states, they have to give you the permit. So, 9.3 million Americans now have concealed-carry permits. People who have such permits are different people from those who say: ‘Gee, if I get in trouble, the nice policeman will come and draw a chalk line around me. That will be helpful.’ Instead, they say: ‘No, I’m in charge of this part of my life.’
Another factor is the number of government workers. If you are a government worker in the United States for 30 years, you are 30 per cent more likely to be a Democrat. Regardless of all other demographics, over time working for the government changes people’s politics – government workers tend to vote for bigger government.
The good news is that, as you have fewer people working for the state, you improve the prospects for liberty. This is why the number of people who work for the government is an important metric. If you are cutting the size of government you need a strategy and metrics. After the 2001 tax cut, which was in June of the first year of the Bush presidency, the administration did not have a to-do list. As we are working on expanding liberty, we need to have a to-do list.
What will we do when crises happen, so we can, as the saying goes, never let a good crisis go to waste? Well, every time there was a crisis in the Bush administration, the left came up and said: ‘You’ve got to spend more money; you’ve got to have more regulations.’ If you don’t have a plan you will implement the plan the other team has prepared.
So when Enron went bankrupt, New Orleans was flooded or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost money – indeed, whenever there was a crisis – the response was to call for more government. The crisis was never presented as a reason for less government, or reforming government: it was always a good argument for more of the same policies that created the crisis.
We learned from the Bush administration that, if you do not go in with a plan of what you want to do, you fail. This is why the Ryan plan is so important – it is written down; it is internalised. An entire political party has signed up to it. If you do not do that, you just get pushed into bigger government by every ‘crisis’.
So, you can change demographics. When we came up with concealed-carry laws, we changed the nature of nine million people to make them more freedom-loving. Home-schooling did the same for two million people: it became a vote-moving issue for them. More people – about half of Americans – have 401(k) individual retirement accounts. That is a number that is growing. If you live in the United States and you have $5,000 in a personal savings account or retirement savings account, it makes you 18 per cent more Republican and less Democrat, on average. All demographic groups: white, black, old, young, rich, poor, government worker, private-sector worker become more Republican with share ownership – direct share ownership.
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